The Need For Disaster Recovery Management Solutions in Indian Banks

An insider’s view on the state of information management in the Indian Banking sector and the need for a strong Disaster Recovery Management (SRM) strategy in the space

We are in the 21st century, and it is not surprising that we have moved ahead in terms of economy, technology and globalization. If one could sit and analyze the radical transformation from the past to present, it is quite astonishing. There was a time where one had to manage all the personal and official data manually and undoubtedly, it took up a lot of time. This is not the case in the present scenario, where time and work are digitally driven. Globalization has been both – key in expanding the opportunities available to Banking sectors, and tough in the face of competition, especially with recent economic concerns.

I have my email, my photos, songs and few documents in my server for easy access, but what about the rest of the information that keeps life humming along? Banking details, passport, driving license, income tax and insurance details and other important documents which are essential for your business.

The banking industry is perhaps on the forefront of using IT enabled services; almost all listed banks and several mid-cap banks have deployed IT applications for core banking. Core banking enables the bank to offer customer services anywhere across the globe. The Reserve Bank of India, the regulatory body for banks has set up mandates to deploy disaster recovery and business continuity plan and ensure that all banks have access to the risk management solutions. Going forward, banks have to demonstrate compliance to RBI’s mandate once in six months. Most of the banks have a primary location where their IT applications run and they also have an alternate site, like any other city where they have the capability to bring up their IT applications if the primary site goes down. Data which includes customer account details are replicated from the primary site to the alternate site on a regular basis.

Closely linked are the securities market, buying or selling shares will have a DMAT account. The stock exchange is sustained and driven by IT applications. The market regulator for the stock market is the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). SEBI follows regulations which would require depositories who participate in the market to demonstrate their risk management system including the disaster recovery capabilities of IT applications.